Help offset server costs by donating. This is totally optional. Any overages will go to library fines or new books.
Ray Bradbury - thoughts and opinions
Hi all, I wonder if I could gather some thoughts about Ray Bradbury. The local book group I am part of chose a collection of his short stories (The Golden Apples of the Sun) as its monthly choice - I have no idea why, since they almost never pick speculative fiction titles. I am finding them for the most part very dull and uninspiring, and wonder if I am just missing something cool about his writing? He's certainly not writing hard sf, which is not a problem in itself except that I can't quite see what he is trying to convey or who he is trying to reach.
There's a theme (which maybe not so many sf writers of the early post-war period were exploring) of the tendency of technology to alienate rather than bring together, so most of the stories are kind of dismal, though not dystopian or anything so explicit as that.
Are any of us fans of Bradbury and if so why? What am I missing? Or are there better starting points for his material?
Comments
I must check the review section...
"dads who build rocket ships" - in Golden Apples one dad builds a fake rocket ship by spending his entire fortune on a missile shell which is to be scrapped, and then straps some old car engines to it to make it rattle and vibrate, and then pretends to take his kids on a ride around the solar system.
So he kind of ruins himself to provide a short-lived and rather unpleasant experience for his family, which his wife (not unnaturally) objects to. And the message is? (Answers on a postcard...)
Found the review https://www.ttrpbc.com/discussion/49/story-collection-review-the-illustrated-man
I love Bradbury. Maybe try Something Wicked This Way Comes.
> I love Bradbury. Maybe try Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Thanks for that!